


if words were bullets

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Emotional Sex, F/M, First Meetings, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:31:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3566429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha likes damaged goods, because Natasha is already damaged goods, and she knows it’s easier to break things that are already a little destroyed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if words were bullets

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to all of you who encouraged this shameless jump into feelings porn (when I was supposed to be writing other things). Yes, all of you. You know who you are. And to **geckoholic** for hand holding and beta and for assuring me this wasn't as terrible an idea as I thought it might be. And to **bobsessive** for reading (and yelling). You're wonderful.

The first time they fuck, it’s raining bullets outside while they’re holed up in a shitty safehouse on the northwest corner of Budapest.

She’s got a sprained wrist and a possibly-fractured-but-more-likely sprained ankle from where she’d fallen during their getaway, and she’s also bleeding from a wound in her side, one that’s too extensive for him to patch with the simple med kit he’s been provided. And despite _stop looking at me like I’m dying, I heal quickly_ , she knows that the paleness of her face and the sweat beading across her upper lip isn’t doing her any favors.

The first time they fuck, by technical standards, they’ve only known one another for the fifteen minutes that have passed while they fought and chased each other across a rooftop. But if they count the hours that they’ve spent watching movements and tracking paths, they can at least say it’s been two full days and a handful of additional seconds.

“Natasha.”

He hasn’t spoken since his arrow scraped a dark gash against her left cheek, a careful and deliberate shot that she knows one millimeter off would have skewered a hole in her throat. His voice sounds tired and hoarse, his words seemingly tripping over themselves as they scrape across a gravel-coated esophagus.

She doesn’t answer.

She doesn’t answer because she doesn’t owe him any kind of explanation as to why she’s here or why she let him take her in, and she doesn’t answer because she doesn’t want to talk. She doesn’t want to give him the opportunity to try to explain why he did or didn’t kill her. Natasha is good at talking – Natasha is _great_ at talking – and Natasha can verbally manipulate any human being on earth with one hand tied around her back. But Natasha doesn’t want to talk to him.

What she _does_ want to do is fuck him.

The cold from outside cuts into her skin like jagged knives in the failing heat of the establishment. She’s down to her bra and underpants; her shirt had come off in an attempt to tend to her injury and she had discarded her pants as soon as they had walked through the door without bothering to wait for permission or wonder what he would think. He’s across the room, bent over and grabbing extra clothing from a bag that he’s unearthed from somewhere underneath the floorboards. When he shrugs out of his tac vest and strips off his soaked tank top, she catches the newly opened gashes across the back of his shoulders, the subsequent bruising from where he must have landed when he broke their fall.

“You can leave that off.”

He freezes, and she can see the muscles in his back tense.

“You a fan of exhibition?” The mechanical response is still there, low and monotone, and it feels like a challenge. She feels one side of her mouth lift in a faint grin.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

Clint straightens up and walks back towards where she’s sitting on the bed, a fistful of thin shirts clutched in his palm.

“So why don’t you tell me?” He kneels down in front of her, and she turns the thought over in her mind, debating her answer before she speaks.

“No,” she says, trying not to flinch as he bunches the extra fabric into her side, securing it with a piece of duct tape that he fishes from somewhere by his feet, tearing off a strip with his teeth.

Clint snorts as she leans back against the wall where the bed is positioned. “Hate to break it to you, Red, but we’re stuck here til morning. You and me. Extraction can’t land til the attack’s over.” He pauses, sitting back on his heels, and in the glint of the weak overhead light, she catches a better look at his body by way of the thin beam that falls across his shoulders. “So if you don’t want to talk, and if you don’t want to die, you better find a way to keep yourself occupied.”

Natasha rolls her head to one side and stares at his face, at the way the lines are deepening around his mouth, and then runs her eyes over the curve of his chest, stopping at his stomach where his cargo pants still sit. She’s known American men, she’s fucked American men, and they’re usually more pristine: the chiseled abs of airbrushed magazines, the smooth chests and untouched skin of perfect specimens that were meant to look like they came from a place that didn’t know hardship, or what it felt like to struggle. His abs are certainly there, she notices, softly defined ripples just underneath his ribs, and he’s got what looks like a smattering of light chest hair along his sternum. But there are more scars there, abrasions and other imperfections that make him look like the very definition of damaged goods.

Natasha likes damaged goods, because Natasha is already damaged goods, and she knows it’s easier to break things that are already a little destroyed.

“We could fuck.”

She watches the way his mouth moves, falling open before it squares itself shut, his entire body rising and falling as if he’s already considered this and she’s just given him permission to accept the decision. Still, she’s surprised when he meets her eyes and nods, leaning forward and placing both elbows on the bed. Natasha angles herself forward as much as she can, catching the way a bulge has started to form in his pants, and suppresses another grin. Typical American, then -- ready to jack off at the first mention of sex with a strange woman. He’s either going to be the best fuck she’s ever had, or the worst.

“Okay.”

She gives him a fraction of a second to let his agreement sink in, to recognize his consent, and then meets his lips halfway, her breath catching in her throat as he steals air from her, working his tongue as far as he can into her mouth.

 _So he wants it_ , she thinks as she pulls back just enough, letting him take the lead, doubtful he’ll notice the shift in dominance. That’s good, then. If they both want to needlessly fuck here, at least it would end up being worth it, rather than her wasting a good orgasm simply because they were trying to pass time. Natasha doesn’t really care one way or the other what happens when they leave, if they even _do_ leave, but she does care about the pleasure she gives her body -- the only thing in her life she’s been able to control, even when she’s felt physically unable to.

She pushes up, feeling the mess of shirts shift loosely against her injury, ignoring the way a fresh wave of pain rolls through her body. It should hurt more but it fuels her, exhilarates her, and she feels her heart rate speed up as her fingers tangle in the short ends of his hair, scraping their way down the back of his neck, where they pad against a collection of more scars. He unhooks her bra with hands that feel firm and cold, and the contrast of ice against her sweaty, injury-laden body induces a tremor that she knows he doesn’t miss.

“Why are you still wearing your pants?” Natasha murmurs in an effort to distract him from noticing her movements, and she feels him jerk clumsily as he starts to fumble with the button on his own pants. He gives up after seconds that seem to last longer than they should and she takes over, yanking them down to his ankles, taking his boxers with them. As she does so, she can tell the stripping part is more for his benefit than hers, as she hasn’t missed the way his cock has become slowly more prominent, pressing up against her legs. Natasha puts two hands on his shoulders and pushes him back, allowing him to step out of his clothes completely as he stands at full height. To his credit, he lets her mold him as she adjusts his stance so that his hips align with her face, and she catches the look shadowing his features as their eyes meet -- he’s fully naked now with nothing to hide, a take me or leave me collection of things borrowed and returned and used and sold to the highest bidder.

Natasha knows what it means to be borrowed and returned and used and thrown to the wolves.

She lets the silence grow between them as the distant rumble of war starts another tune on the soundtrack of their moment, studying him curiously. He’s well endowed, his cock jutting out from where it’s been freed – a nice size, she decides as she wraps the hand of her good arm around it, giving it a firm squeeze. He moans at her touch, a sound she can tell has been unconsciously emitted, and she smirks as she bends down to take him in her mouth.

Her hands find purchase on the sides of his hips, the barely there formation of love handles that she can tell have been sanded down to belong to a body no doubt made fit a profile specific to a job, or maybe, she thinks, another woman. She increases the intensity in which she’s teasing him, digs her fingers in at the parts that are more flesh and less bone, soaking in the abrasive texture of his skin; there have been too many men in her life -- too many bad experiences and too many bad fucks -- but given the way he’s moving with her, he seems to at least have some familiarity in this area. His body is one that’s worn and hardened with the texture of what Natasha vaguely recognizes as the scars of old bullet wounds and jagged self-wounds -- and the knowledge of that combined with the force in which she’s going down on him makes her feel lightheaded, as if she’s holding her breath underwater and can’t make it to the surface.

“Military?” she asks when she stops sucking, pausing to draw air into starved lungs. His hands are braced against the wall behind her and he’s breathing hard, his lips pursed in what she recognizes as a sign of pleasure.

“Three years,” he says, tilting his head back, neck straining. Natasha lets her mind ruminate on this for a brief moment before returning to her work, feeling the way his thighs start to buckle, compressing the skin around her face. She pulls back again almost at once, catching the glaze that’s started to form in half-lidded eyes.

“I like you,” and as she says the words, she realizes for the first time in her life that in this context, they might not be a complete lie. “But –”

“But?” he breathes, his words all but a gasp. She frowns, stroking his cock again in long, practiced movements.

“But, I don’t want you to come in my mouth,” she continues, her voice matter-of-fact, as if she’s reciting a passage from a book. He grunts in response, his body relaxing just enough so that he can steady himself as he pushes away from the wall.

“What a lady.”

“I _am_ a lady,” she says, not bothering to hold back the sarcasm. “And if I’ve satisfied you enough, I’d like to have my own fun, please.”

She sees the way his eyes flick over to the makeshift bandage and sighs, spreading her legs.

“If I bleed the fuck out, I’ll give you warning,” she says with an eye roll. “Is that better?”

He nods almost feverishly and she quakes her legs, feeling the wetness percolating as he walks two fingers inside of her. Natasha arches on instinct and it seems to spur him, and he’s stroking her liberally now, rubbing her cunt with a force that seems almost savage. Her hands find his back again and she gently shoves his head further down and Clint seems to get the message, then, teasing her with his tongue before he starts eating her out fully.

Natasha feels her head loll back as he tugs at her folds with his teeth, a sensation that nearly sends her over the edge. She’s no stranger to having men touch her with varying degrees of intensity, but something about his touch is different –- it’s tender even though it doesn’t need to be, but not so sensitive that she feels like he’s placating her because she’s a stranger that he took in off the street.

A stranger that he was supposed to kill.

She feels the beginning of her orgasm as it develops, a slow-building wave in the lower part of in her stomach, and he pulls out as if he’s read her mind, running his tongue over his lips. It’s almost enough to break her, seeing him so clearly inebriated after having tasted the most intimate parts of her, and it makes her emotional in a way that she knows she’s never felt with anyone before, mark or not.

He’s got a condom hidden somewhere in his mission bag because of course he does, and she can’t help but watch as he rolls it on, smoothing it down over his erection.

“You like to fuck all the girls you save?”

He shrugs non-committedly, balling up the wrapper and throwing it onto the floor. “Only the pretty ones.”

She recognizes the matching sarcasm in his tone and pulls him forward again once he’s done, the bed creaking underneath their combined weight as he positions himself on top of her. It’s an easy penetration, he’s hard and she’s wet and it’s a mutual need mixed with a terrifying feeling of want as they start to rock back and forth together, her side throbbing in an almost blinding pain that only fuels her demand for release.

“You’re bleeding on me,” he points out as she drags him closer and she manages to grin, red hands wrapping around his scarred back.

“Marking my territory. Besides,” she adds as she thrusts upward, as if to prove her own words, “I said I’d tell you if I was bleeding out. Not if I was bleeding _on_ you.”

“Fair point,” he answers, but his words are lost in an unintelligible jumble of letters as she rolls herself upwards again. He rides her like he knows her, and as he hits at her most sensitive spot, she finds herself realizing that’s an impossible thought, because before a few hours ago, she’d never seen him before. Yet somehow, in this small decrepit safehouse at what seems like literally the end of the world, they’re baring the deepest parts of their souls to each other in a way that feels entirely too personal, as if they’re trying to shed the worst parts of themselves in order to make something new.

She feels his legs buckle and stops holding back, feeling the orgasm she’s been keeping at bay take over, and he comes with her, his cock tightening and then releasing almost instantly in tandem. She takes notice of the way his chest heaves, the way he instantly wraps his arms around her, and it makes her wonder how long it’s been since he let himself have this kind of pleasure. She had initially thought it was the kind of thing he did with every girl he met on the road, but something about the way they had fucked – the way he had so desperately seemed to want her and the way he had so comfortably worked on her body – is causing her to realize otherwise.

Natasha lets herself ride out the aftermath of her moment, letting the pain subside as her movements slow. Dimly, she’s aware of him moving next to her, the dip of the bed as he rolls off and then a gentle pressure at her side as he works on another crude bandage that she knows isn’t doing much.

“You must really not want me to die,” she says weakly when she finds her voice again, wondering how much blood loss she’s already experienced. She turns her head, surprised to see that he’s gone back to being stretched out beside her, still unclothed.

And in the silence between their shared breathing, a delicate, sudden quiet.

“Bullets stopped.” His voice sounds smoother now, he’s still clearly out of breath but no longer overly coarse.

“Yeah,” Natasha says, staring at the ceiling. “Yeah, they did.” Clint swallows loudly and she hears him suck in a harsh breath.

“Means extraction will come soon.”

“Yeah,” Natasha repeats, her fingers inching towards his hand. The force in which he links them together is so brutal, she can’t help but recognize the underlying layers of fear and desperation, a hunger for something tangible that sharply resonates with what she knows she’s felt more times than she would willingly admit to, given the life that she’s been leading. She waits for him to let go, to lessen his hold as the minutes tick down to when they won’t be two people side by side in private anymore, but his grip is unfailing, and _there’s something human_ _here_ , she realizes, something so broken that it can’t possibly be put back together, something that she didn’t think could exist outside the walls of her own making.

It’s what she remembers when she’s tied to a chair some years later, willingly enduring pain and humiliation at the expense of hired thugs.

_Barton’s been compromised._

It’s what she remembers when she’s curled into a shell, desperately praying her life won’t end with the last memory of him being a stoic face on a computer screen.

_Does anybody copy?_

It’s what she thinks about when she tells him _this is just like Budapest all over again_ – when he answers _you and I remember Budapest very differently_ – because Budapest is blood and trust and not giving a single fuck about life or death, and Budapest is beginnings and ends, shedding who you were to become something else, another animal in another skin, a secret too intense to share.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm fully aware the "first explicit meeting" in Budapest has been done (many a time) over the years. But I'm not one to turn down my need to explore feelings.


End file.
